Monday, January 09, 2006

MDTTI: today´s lecture

Today, the first day back to classes, we have four hours of lectures from Prof D. Manuel IZQUIERDO CARRASCO. I have no link of note to cite for him; seems to be an occupational hazard for many lawyers as yet in that they frequently lack an online presence. Grumble grumble. Well, let me not run on about that subject.

Having visited in the Catalunya region last week, I am now keenly aware of accents. Yes, more than before. Well, of course I heard mostly Catalan spoken last week, and after a while I was able to follow, more-or-less, conversations. No problem with understanding written Catalan of course. Well, today´s lecturer drops the letter "s", always the final "s" of words ending in "s", and then I´ve not discerned the pattern for his dropping the "s" in the middle of words, as the latter is not consistent. Sometimes he does the typical Iberian Spanish thing of pronouncing the "s" as "th" (as is obvious I lack knowledge re transcribing the IPA (international phonetic alphabet) on the Web). So, even though he is currently at the Universidad de Córdoba, he seems to not be from southern/Andalucian Spain (judging by his accent). What´s interesting is that sometimes instead of pronouncing the "s" as English "th", he aspirates the sound, making it into something else, a different sound altogether, and sometimes not aspirating but rather dropping the "s" sound. He´s dropped the "s" in [España, francés, país, distinto, and después] making them into /Epaña/ /francé/ /paí/ /ditinto/ and /despué/. Though, he´s not dropped the "s" in [establecía], [desentiendo]. So, I´m not sure about his linguistic pattern (if any) for "s" as they occur within words. For sure he drops final "s" always. ...And yes, I am listening to / following the lecture content.

Ooh, he just said that he´s Andalucian. Curious. His accent does not conform to the Spanish linguistic theory I was taught.